You are very confident about the earth’s population leveling off and then falling. How can you prove this? After all, population is still growing.

Population is still technically growing, but according to the United Nation Population Division’s numbers, that growth is slowing dramatically.

The United Nations Population Division (UNPD) is the most reliable source of population statistics in the world, which is why we use their numbers for our videos. And, according to the UNPD, population growth will continue to slow down over the next few decades. In fact, if current trends persist, our growth will halt right around 8 billion by 2045. After that, our numbers will start to fall off, slowly at first, and then faster.

If you find this whole idea counterintuitive, don’t worry! You’re not alone. At first glance, it really does seem like population is skyrocketing. That’s because we’re still adding a billion people every few decades . . . and a billion people is a lot of people. But the way we can tell that population is not ballooning out of control is precisely the fact that we’re only adding a billion people each time. And soon, we won’t even be adding that many.

You claim that the UN’s predictions are reliable. How reliable have they historically been?

Again, it depends on which variant you use. In our research, we’ve looked at the UN’s predictions and how they have compared with real life–and in every case the “low variant” has been the most accurate. You can run the numbers yourself here

Even if population growth is slowing down, a billion people every 15 years is still a lot of people. Isn’t this still a problem?

It is a lot of people. And of course, greater numbers bring their own challenges and issues. But there isn’t any convincing evidence to show that the size of our population is the cause of the world’s most pressing issues, like war, famine, disease, and poverty.

Let’s put it another way. Since we have more people, our wars are bigger. Our famines may affect more people, and more people will have diseases and be poor. But population growth didn’t create these problems–they have have existed since people have existed.

In other words, we can’t blame population for problems that have been around forever. The only difference is, since there are more of us now, these problems affect more people.

Why has the global total fertility rate dropped so much?

Scientists are still debating exactly why, but there’s no doubt that it is happening. All over the world, birthrates have been dropping quickly, and for nearly 50 years now.

Many demographers think that it is because more and more people are urbanizing (moving into large cities). When families live out in the country on farms, it makes more economic sense to raise larger families, so that they have people to help them and care for them in their old age. It’s also true that cities tend to have better healthcare facilities, which reduce infant mortality. This in turn means that parents end up having fewer children, since more of their existing children are surviving to adulthood.

Demographic expert Philip Longman observes, in his book The Empty Cradle, “As more and more of the human race find itself living under urban conditions in which children no longer provide any economic benefit to their parents, but are rather costly impediments to material success, people who are well adapted to this new environment will tend not to reproduce themselves. And many others who are not so successful will imitate them.” (p.31, available here)

AmazingFor a long time the UN has said we will peak at 9 billion. Well, at first it was 11 billion, but with the current birth dearth crisis, it appears it will never see that day. 8 billion is a lot, but considering that the population is also aging at an unprecendented rate, we will lose a greater portion of our population. That is the only “overpopulation” in this case – too many old, not enough young. Perhaps we will not even reach 8 billion with these issues.

But when I hear of students and countless others quote that overpopulation is killing our planet, it sickens me. Their fear and hysteria has provided the funding for environmental groups and has shown the true hypocrisy of the UN. To me, the only useful thing about the UN is their population statistics, and even that is quickly changing.

Thank you for standing up against environmentalism and this myth of overpopulation. For great justice.

What? And what is wrong with environmentalism? Ok perhaps it is okay that we are 7 billion people in the earth, but we are really ignorant and we are destroying the planet, every day we take down 10 million trees each day, we fill the oceans with plastic bottles!

There is an encyclopediaThere is an encyclopedia collections worth of examples of humans’ negative impact on the earth’s other living things. Species extinctions, polution, scientifically proven human caused global warming. Look at the last 2 rhinocerouses of a certain species, slaughtered for their horns, for use as an aphrodisiac. As if people need to have more sex. the last 2 giant soft shelled turtles in china under armed guard at far removed zoos. Our thorough spread of every possible invasive species to unevolved ecosystems that can’t handle them. Smog over every major city. Even our outer space is cluttered with our trash. Cities fighting with states over ground and river water usage. The Rio Grande no longer reaches the ocean because it is sucked up by people to grow crops in deserts that evaporate away. Overpopulation is real and it is coming whether we acknowledge it or not. Human nature will not allow a planned, eased, peaceful solution to this problem. It will be war, disease, and most of all, lack of food and clean water that will cull this herd of selfish organisms. But before this happens all of mother nature will be raped and murdered. The agent Smith of the Matrix movies had it right. We are a virus that spreads and overwhelms it’s host. The earth without life is just a big rock. Every living thing on it took the hisory of the solar system to create, every extinction caused by human beings ends that line of that process forever.

But still … is it the overpopulation?I still think that the main question is not wether there is too much of us. Questions that we really should be asking is … How are we managing our resources and what kind of living standards do we want on this planet. I believe there is enough food, water, discovered and undiscovered energy resources and I’m not talking about new sources of oil to sustain much more of us. The only problem that we really have is our infantile, egotistic and frightened view of life. For example. Do you really think, that we don’t have enough food available to feed every and each one on this planet? But do we really want to? If we really would want to do it, don’t you think we could find the way? As long as we believe that there is not enough, as long as there are people who profit from those fears, as long as there are those who can manipulate availability of the resources, we WILL have problems with overpopulation. Overpopulation of those who try to control, those who try to manipulate, those who create wars, stock crashes, debt, famine, misery, suffering … Planet is fine. Planet can and will survive without us. The question we have to ask ourselves is: Do we want to live nicely and comfortably on this planet, or do we want something else. I don’t believe that there is a global solution to our problems. Solution is individual and individual only. When enough individuals starts demanding change, change will happen.

Population growth will kill off the environment, correct?Or do you figure that the rain forest will move into an apartment? We are already losing about a mile of the rain forest every year to help feed the growing population. So far we are still gaining a billion people every 13 years on the dot. How can you say this isn’t a problem? Sure there are more people to help pay for social security. But thats nothing compared to the facts of a limited amount of fresh water, a limited amount of areas in which to grow food and to live. You honestly think a world with no grass, no forests, no wildlife, just people everywhere is worth living? We are not the only species on the Earth, buddy.

Would you like to spread these informations on your homepage, on TV and radio stations, in social medias etc und support this campaign., if possible?

The German physicist, aerospace physician, writer and television presenter Heinz Haber wrote in 1973 that a planet the size of our Earth should not be populated with more than 500 million human beings in order to maintain a harmonious balance between human beings and nature. Today (June 2013 ) we have, with (officially listed ) 7.2 billion human beings, reached more than 14 times this guideline value, and an end of this population growth is not in sight! A huge mass of unemployment and the collapse of our prosperity will be further consequences. A worldwide, mandatory birth control for all countries of Earth is urgent, if we want the impending climate catastrophe to weaken somewhat.
Even the UN IPCC has recognised the danger in its fifth World Climate Report, but played it down by only predicting a higher sea level rise than previously prognosticated. The world however is in store for an unprecedented climate catastrophe which will bring us human beings – even in Europe! – primeval conditions. According to a current campaign at the world’s largest petition platform “change.org”, the reasons for this are obvious, but are ignored and tabooed as a result of ignorance, cowardice and lust for might.

Quote from a proponent of the petition:
“The overpopulation of Earth is a huge disaster and shows the picture of an egoistical thinking human being who doesn’t care the slightest bit about his/her environment and who has raised the fulfilment of his/her desires to be the supreme principle of his/her life. The quality of the future life of all human beings is inseparably connected with the state of nature. The unrestrained plundering, exploitation and the therewith accompanying destruction, devastation and poisoning of the soil, air and water, caused by the huge demand for foodstuffs and goods of all kind of a still explosively growing population, presents the human beings with unsolvable problems. Overpopulation is not a taboo word, rather the exact term for an excessive number of human beings brought about by an irrational and irresponsible procreation of children, and which nature can no longer cope with. There should only be as many human beings living in a country as it can also sustain from its own resources. In addition the fauna and flora must also have enough space to expand in order to fulfil their vital functions in a good functioning ecosystem. This shows that all countries of Earth are overpopulated and need to do something about it. The control of the overpopulation does not mean that human beings have to leave, and it also has nothing to do with racism, but rather it demands of the human being, regardless of his/her colour, that a reasonable birth regulation must be strongly striven for and carried out for the benefit of all human beings and all life on our planet.”

Earth carrying capacityAt the rate of the average American’s oil consumption and the rate of oil formation over hundreds of millions of years (total oil generated by planet approx. 1 trillion barrels), it is trivial to show that at American standards of living, the earth’s carrying capacity for human beings on the basis of oil consumption is around 10,000 people.

Obviously man need not live on oil alone, but it kind of puts our coming energy crisis into perspective.

Achim WolfMoney = waste. Less money=less waste. Resources are diverted away from areas of low socioeconomic status to high ones, because that is where the money is. People go hungry because some people are greedy. The earth can produce enough, but in favor of affluence people have abandoned farms to seek pleasure or comfort. Many of our problems could be improved or solved if everyone would plant a small garden, raise a few chickens, or somehow contribute to the production of their own food. Local food = fewer vehicles, less gasoline for transportation, better air quality, fewer or maybe no chemicals for preservation. Reduced carbon dioxide, more oxygen, less water for processing. Manure from animals for fertilization. Animals with favorable feed to food conversion ratios. And personal satisfaction for the farmer to be involved in such a vital and rewarding process as producing for himself and others. Even city dwellers can grow a vegetable in a small pot on a windowsill. Everyone contributes and every bit helps. Our earth can heal.

People in large families consume less per individual than people in smaller families. Most if not all families in the United States consume more per individual than families outside of the United States. It is not the number of people in a family that contributes to waste and the consumption of resources as much as the amount of money the family has. It is wealth that leads to mass consumption and waste.

And Mr. Wolf look at China to see the devastation that birth regulation has created. An unsustainable economic situation as their population ages and an unnatural gender imbalance leading to the abuse and trafficking of women, and mass murder of unborn girls. Humans are inherently free. Regulation is the tyrannical deprivation of freedom. Look to Germany or Russia’s past to see the results there. Heinz Haber is not God and his falsehoods should not be mistaken as truth.

population vs resourcesPopulation growth becomes a problem when we do not have enough resources to live. Humans are destroying most of the Electronic Medical Record natural resources and not worried about the coming generation, which makes it difficult for the future generation to live. So the population growth is being top be a big trouble in future.

Overpopulation myth? Think again.I don’t know what the carrying capacity of earth is, neither does this website or it’s creators. But I do know that we are well past it. We are feeding the world on franken-food, pumping the aquifers dry, soiling our oceans. we long ago decided to quit living in harmony on earth, rather we choose to mine it for all it is worth, every other species be damned. we are now on spaceship earth, gobbling up our supplies and assuming god will save us. It is pathetic. This website is pure misinformation. The pressure we put on the environment can be simplified to an equation: P=NC where P is environmental pressure (such as wiping out the cod fisheries) C is consumption and N is the number of people consuming. C is a very complicated thing to tackle. Much of our consumption is considered good, especially by the economy and Governments. Trying to change anything in C is a tough fight and there are literally millions of components to C; from mining coal to pouring fertilizer on our soil. N on the other hand is simple. All we have to do is: 1) combat this mis-information, 2) educate and liberate women world-wide (meaning we need to get the worlds religions in check, they are way past useful at this point) 3) provide family planning services to all.

With no due respect…You actively try to take people’s basic freedom away…terrible. You can’t make people make a fundamental change to themselves like this, it’s completely unnatural, there are dire personal and social side effects and consequences to birth control (other than abstaining-and even that is debatable.) That’s not the answer, sorry, come up with something realistic. I’d rather be wiped off the planet (quickly please) than this solution-that’s how wrong I feel you are about this. I’m sure you’re happy to hear it….one less child bearing woman. Ugh.

population growthBeing a self centered ignorant Blind live stock, focusing your entire life on YOUR happiness and what YOU desire and being told to bang out 4 useless kids to a world you didn’t care about is now the social norm across the world, And it’s not going to change PERIOD lets just hope that when the stuff hits the fan it’s within OUR generation So we can enjoy watching the self centered spoilt, mindless drones of our generation realize that ‘No it wasn’t ALL ABOUT ME’ Oh it’s going to be sweet when they come off from the high of their illusion and realize that the golden years have passed and aren’t coming back around for a LONG LONG time, it’s inevitable but i’ve always been raised to look on the bright side of things, and this will be a sight to behold, something not to dread, but to look forward to, it’s over, you tried now just enjoy the show and applaud when they’re at their worst, And tell them ‘Well Done, Was It Worth It?’

NOT the social norm!No! It’s not “the social norm” man, didn’t you pay attention at all? FFS! The population is slowing and actually going to reverse! So “the social norm” is actually NOT having kids! Jesus, didn’t you finish school?

Overpopulation? What are you saying? Who lied to you?A wise man once said, “Those who think there are too many people should offer themselves to be shot!” He also said, “If you have too many guests for dinner you don’t shoot some of them, you bake more bread and we have the technology to do that!” John Lennon, after being asked about overpopulation said something to the effect, “and who do we (“developed” countries) think we are to dictate to other people that they (3rd world) are overpopulating and we will tell them how many children to have?” (look it up on YouTube).

Since I can remember, almost every “nature” documentary ended with the same quip, “such and such may have a chance as long as man/mankind does not destroy it”. I say that is a very bigoted statement, lumping all people into one. As stated, corruption (lying, stealing), hoarding (greed, avarice), wars (pride, anger, envy) and even laziness (sloth) create the problems of mankind and the environment. Individuals, however, carry these acts out on a choice by choice basis and it starts with “average” people. A child starts with an innate desire to love and be loved and of course with selfishness and a propensity for all the bad things listed above. We all make choices everyday that affect the future dramatically (will we learn and teach to love and be loved or learn and teach death).

We, people, have enormous potential for creativity to solve problems if the love path is chosen. However, the highly commercialized mainstream media currently promotes the opposite. It thrives on death, division, disease and destruction as these generate fear which is used for selling commercial products. While “the media” maybe did not intend, it also produced a breaking down of love as the entertainment, like a drug, had to get stronger and stronger to keep the watchers tuned in. Instead of reaching for perfection of love it turned to the easier road of base emotions which people have a (un)natural tendency towards (our reason tells us we are meant for higher things but our senses sometimes win out).

OK, I guess I’m getting off the point to explain we must first look in the mirror to fix things and then check ourselves if love is our motivation or something else is. And don’t listen to the “siren songs” of the media that cause fear, anger, etc.
As for humankind, the “nature” show that implies we are alien and a “problem” need to be rejected. We, whether we like it or not, our caretakers of this planet; we are NOT, however, beneath it or alien to it. And unless we set ourselves up, individually, as supreme judges of life and death, none of us can make the decision for a man and woman to decide how many children (and children have a right to be conceived in love and in a natural way), to bring forth into this world, be they from the USA or Bangladesh. We have new technologies and creativity (and probably resources) now and as yet unknown that can provide for our needs now and in the future.

Good ideas here. Psychologically speaking…Wealthy countries are whom most conglomerate companies target and they put a TON of money into brainwashing tactics. /advertising. You are born into these “normal” ways of life here. It’s difficult to understand the plight and easy to be dismissive of this “first world problem” and say we are spoiled and ignorant..and that we could make such a difference with all our money. Even I think that about myself at times..frustrating and difficult when you want to help but have no idea how to do so the right way (because believe me, “the right way” may not be buying solar panels…if you understand where I’m going with this) It’s all very confusing when you have to start where you wake up from all the brainwashing that was fed to you from birth.

Overpopulation is a problem for a number of reasonsHave you ever gone into any large city and taken a whiff. I don’t know what technological wonders you expect to deal with the sewage generated by such a number, even if some dreamer tells you all those people will live in wonderful urban settings in the future. The fact is that some of the sludge has to be treated and dried and dumped into deserts causing further degradation of the planet. Ships full of organic waste travel the seas. Under New York there are areas where sewage bubbles under the streets. The infrastructure cannot handle it now. If you think this isn’t going to cause a problem then you have never gone to a sewage treatment plant, seen a wastewater project or anything relevant to setting limits for what can actually be handled. Have you ever visited a garbage dump? Have you ever visited a housing project and seen what life is like for the residents? Have you thought about jobs and seen what must be done to contain those who cannot contain themselves? China is a perfect example of what had to be done to go to an urban society with massive overpopulation. The people were used by a class of entrepreneurs who did not consider the effects, only the profits. Now they have slave labor but they can eat. What I am saying is that you are not being realistic. We sent our manufacturing jobs overseas and now find ourselves either underemployed, unemployed or uneducated in mass because of the distribution of wealth. A few will live very well. A small number will be doing fine. Most will be struggling and some will be starving. Resources used to build housing such as skyscrapers with cubbyholes will be scarce so good luck with living somewhere other than by a railroad track or a garbage dump. Without manufacturing, the means to pay for an urban lifestyle does not exist. Look at India. After all, if you don’t have a job or any means to do anything or the education to do anything to feed yourself then being superfluous in an urban setting is going to be your lot, and a hard one it will be. Rural settings can feed more people but they will become compressed and the seas will not provide food much longer due to ocean acidification. Climate change is another issue to add to the problem. Having babies for love has nothing to do with it. If you love the earth and the people on it then limit yourself so that there are animals and plants and forests and trees and a life worth living. On an earth that has been overpopulated to the point where a self imposed mass extinction of humans is eventual, it will be a life from hell. It sounds to me like you are in love with yourself and feel that you must multiply yourself. I’m going to throw one at you that people like you have thrown at those who have zero or one: Why are you being so selfish?

Should the growth be stopped?A trouble is that many humans are evil, and with the growth of our population, the evil got worse, for instance, compare the number of people that Nazis killed, or contributed to killing, to whatever massacre that humans perpetrated before the Industrial Revolution.

Population growth versus environmentI can only speak from my personal experience. The village where I grew up in back before 2000 had large farming fields, train stations etc. But after 60 years I went back to discover many of those field are not filled with trees….. And a wide open train station/rail yard is not a forest. Unless the population in that region continues to grow, mother nature takes over in one life time to restore it to its original condition………. Yet the situation in over-populated Haiti, where there is no significant use of hydrocarbons to replace wood burning, the surface tree growth etc. is entirely decimated….. to the point of frequent landslides destroying even the coral reef and associated sea life.

Yes there are too many people. There is no changing the minds of billions of people that dont care about the state of the world and its resources. Humans are a virus and it’s only natural for us to rationalize growing our population to ludicrous numbers. We need to be stopped before we kill our host.

Yes, simply because too many of us do too much damage, too fast.I think we are currently overpopulated. Even if everyone did not eat animals and all that grain went to feed people (which is probably the only way it could work) and even if we all agreed (ha ha) to feed everyone, there may not be enough food to feed everyone right now. Though I feel humans are harming too much too fast, I’m always open to “nothing is impossible.” However, this is close to it-we will continue to take from nature at an extremely fast rate, and I’m worried it may be too late…but I’ll still keep trying to change my ingrained/brainwashed behaviors at an individual level and even try to market to the masses so that change happens on many levels-I’m just trying to figure out how to do this in the right way before I die…

all conjecture, no scienceUse some science instead of just bland conjecture and rambling. Over the top hysteria. There are problems. There are plenty of people working to make things better. It won’t happen overnight. It also isn’t nearly as bad as you make it out to be. I’d hate to go through life being so over the top paranoid.

Undue hysteriaIt is important to promote a balanced view of population. It is not numbers that cause problems. It is policies. Our planet is easily capable if sustaining human and animal life to a much greater extent than 7 billion. Yet hypocritical, damaging practices which make it legal and possible to destroy and ruin are not changed. Instead they say we must reduce human population. This is getting dangerously close to mandating genocide. They on the one hand turn a blind eye to bad policies and behaviour and even promote this, then blame mankind, making them feel guilty and like a scourge, thus devaluing humanity. Please consider this. Wars are not started and funded by populations, but by governments.

Environmental control and overpopulationSeriously ! Garbage, waste water increases, factories discharging toxic waste just to metion a few and this site has the nreve to say it’s not caused, at least in part, to overpopulation. Come on ! Humans will never learn to control waste and population. face it.

Stand up against what?Do you not flush your toilette? Take a shower? Clean your house? Wash your clothes? Oh you do? So you’re into protecting your immediate environment. To hell with the rest of it right?

Are you out of your mind? You sound like a suspicious conspiracy theorist, and very misguided. If you don’t think that a world of more than seven billion people at present is not a serious “overpopulation,” problem, then perhaps you should take in to your home the 400 million extra people who have come into being in the four years since you wrote your moron drivel.

Heads in SandEarth can sustain and support roughly 2 billion people. Period. More than this number and we continue to go over the cliff behind all the other lemmings. Over 2 billion, and it is really just a matter of speed–the higher the numbers–the faster we approach a Mass Extinction of homo sapiens. Since 1970 we have driven ONE-HALF of all other species into extinction, destroyed aquifers, raised the global mean temperature, depleted arable land, depleted the minerals of arable land, created deserts, destroyed and polluted vast areas of the oceans, created holes in the ozone. We are the disease, the fungus, the bacterium, the virus, the despoilers. War, poverty, famine, climate destruction, et cetera are only the symptoms.

Let’s think a little :Let’s think a little : More people need more food and more resources and more cars and more everything That leads to cutting the forests in order to make agriculture – more CO2 in atmosphere from larger industries and increased number of cars and that leads to global warming of what the hell is called these days
What amaze me is that nobody thinks that all earth problems are because they are too many humans living here and trying to reduce CO2 emission for example is just a futile exercise to resolve an effect without touching the real cause of the problem
So until governments will take measures for some sorts of birth control every effort to fix anything will be a lost cause

This makes sense to me but,This makes sense to me but, do you really believe that we are going to loose so much of our futures population.
And what do you think will happen to make every just stop their population growth.

Population ShrinkingPopulation growth has, in a sense, already stopped in many countries. Their birth rates are below replacement level. A population cannot truly grow if it is under-producing. Population numbers appear to be growing because people are living longer. This hides the fact that they are not replacing themselves. As each older generation dies, the population will decline because the following generations keep shrinking.

So we´ll reach 8 billion and then fall………But if overpopulation is a myth, why stopping at 8 billion? Couldn´t the Earth carry say 15 billion? Or more? Whenever if starts to fall, that´s the sign overpopulation was a problem…
It is not “the only problem”, and won´t solve all the other problems, but if we don´t solve overpopulation, nature will……..

Problem with overpopulayion is different..Most ppl don’t understand problem with overpopulation. It’s not mainly problem with growing population. It’s problem with limited earth resources. Already if every single person would live american lifestyle. Earth should be 4 times bigger than it is now. And it’s already huge problem with 7 bilion ppl. What will happen when it will be 9 or 10? If developing and underdeveloped countries will continoue to increase their consumption what is their right, like americans do. Nowadays 75% world population comes from poor regions. And they want live better like rest of western world. Mother Earth simlpy can’t handle this. It’s not s-f. It’s well known fact. American lifestyle and developing urge will literally kill our planet. We dont have much time to solve this problem. Otherwise our children will live in world of war for water, oil, and food. Best example is Rwanda Genocide. When neighbors were killing each other for their land, home or place to work. Im not pessimistic person, rather realistic. This movie shows only numbers. Nothing more nothing less. It don’t shows real problem with overpopulation.

There is enough for human need but not for human greedI went through most of the comments. Felt extremely sad that children have to be aborted because there is not enough for the living if they want to live the lifestyle of America! I wonder whether the world has not survived without the present American lifestyle! In the bargain of American lifestyle and large amount of wastage, be it food, clothing or otherwise, should the unborn child be penalised and pay the cost? Where are we going? Why can’t the taxpayers amount be spent towards the propaganda against unwanted luxury than towards abortion and contraceptives? Are those great personalities who support abortion and contraceptives to help the poor, ready to shed all the extravaganza and release the funds for the education, hygiene, betterment of the poor? I am sure they already give a lot towards charity. But what if only what is humanly required is kept for self and the rest shared? Let our propaganda be pro simplicity.

a trade offThere are tradeoffs… you can have 15 kids & then you will have less. There are only so many resources to go around.
Or you can have 1 kid or 2 kids & then you will have more.
Those are the choices we make.

You can’t expect to have unbridled birth rates & children & still have more. The math does not add up. There are limited resources both for individuals, countries, continents & the world.
Western societies generally have much lower birth rates & that is why they have more.
Other societies choose to not use birth control & have 10 kids apiece so naturally they can afford less.

Religion is part of the problem – they push people to have more children than they can afford or take care of.
Irresponsible, unbridled & unchecked birth rates can be blamed on religion.

Bottom line… you cannot have unlimited number of children & then have everything you want. People need to start being more responsible & using birth control. If you can only afford 1 child that is what you should have – not 15! People need to be educated that you can have sex without having to have a child along with it. Answer… use birth control and stop breeding unbridled & irresponsibly and then you won’t be starving to death.

This is science?Why don’t you tell us how population will eventually decline slowly at first, then faster? How will that happen unless people stop having children entirely–something unlikely to happen–or reach the carrying capacity of the earth, run out of resources and food because they’ve destroyed the planet through consumption and overpopulation, or just kill each other through war. Another possibility is a pandemic disease. Something has to change in order for population to decline rapidly, and this is why we say we are overpopulated and need to stop having children and consuming so much. We would rather get to the point of population decline without destroying our planet, having a massive destructive war, or through a pandemic. I suppose we could be just like you and not worry about it, and then we will all suffer horrible consequences. Or maybe you think this decline is just going to magically happen without humans changing anything about the way we live or without any kind of change in resource availability. If you give mice food, they will continue to reproduce infinitely. Humans are no different.

Population vs. consumption styleI will skip the mathematics of diminishing returns and go right to the point of consumption. You are correct in pointing out consumption. Food consumption is not the problem. I am affiliated with the Surfrider Foundation, which focuses on actively picking up litter and educating the public about responsible use. The plastic and polystyrene debris that has accumulated over the last 40 years alone has reached a point that no matter what part of the ocean you go to, or what beach you walk along, you will find plastic and or Styrofoam pellets. That is a separate issue to the number of people on the planet and getting food to consumers. Food does not require plastic packaging. The rising ocean waters can be desalinated to produce water for agriculture, industry, and entertainment. Polluted water can be filtered to consume. The sad fact that this page is dedicated to is that large investors and governments are not building sustainable infrastructure, such as wave generators and windmills at sea to power desalinization plants. I don’t know why the US isn’t on board with this. Here is a link that is quite informative on how to help fix the resource demand. If you volunteer and pick up the mess that our recent ancestors (and us) made, that will help too. We can’t be complacent, but we would be suicidal to give up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination

How is food consumption not an issue???I’m sorry… but your inability to define food consumption as an issue really shows how little science your site (and those who edit it) use.

1. currently food production and consumption generates more green house gas emissions than anything else (including all forms or industry put together). With the increasing trend in meat consumption this WILL increase per person… with an increasing population, even more so.

2. deforestation for agriculture. NO. forest is not being replaced at a faster rate. How do you define foret? technically canopy cover of over 10$ is forest… this can be achieved in a paddock. dense forest (that actually captures carbon) is being torn down every day to meet the needs of the increasing population and their consumption.

3. Transport issues

4. As stated, the most rapid population increase will be in developing nations. These regions provide food for those countries whose population in not increasing AS rapidly. Where the hell are you going to get your food from??

5. there are SO many other considerations… global sea water rise, climate change refugees. Even you admit that there will be more famine and war and disease… Apparently this is something that you are advocating for?!

In summary: Please stop spread propaganda that gives people more excuse to live beyond the Earth’s capacity. Stop saying you’ll skip the ‘mathematics’ about things you don’t want to provide the facts for. People NEED and want to know the facts… even if the truth is is complicated.

Simple, the amount of birthSimple, the amount of birth rates is declining world wide, which means the ageing population will suddenly get to a tipping point and for a few decades the death rates will far outweigh the birth rates, this has nothing to do with pandemic diseases its just a mathematical fact that IS ALREADY GOING TO HAPPEN… you can look this stuff up if you google, its all fact not fiction!

This is not scienceYou say that the trend toward urbanization will lead to a decline in population. With an increase in standard of living they will also have increased access to contraception, an education about how to use, and an increased desire to use it. People will have sex no matter what, and unless they use contraception, they will have babies. This is not magic that happens when people move to cities–there are real reasons why they have fewer children. I wish you would mention this because you make it seem like urbanization automatically will cause population decline.

With that trend toward urbanization comes an increase in standard of living, resource consumption, and impact on the planet of those moving to the city. So in terms of resource consumption, each American today has the equivalent impact on the planet of 55 Bangladeshis. So that means the US population is the equivalent of 17 billion Bangladeshis in terms of impact on the planet. In other words, if we had a planet of 17 billion people who only consumed as much as the average Bangladeshi, they would have as much impact as the US population. If we all become urbanized, our populations might decline, but our impact on the planet will increase, so the decline in population will not matter. From these statistics we can see that it is the affluent (Americans as 5% of the world’s population consuming 30% of the world’s resources)who are overpopulated.

Another thing you seem to gloss over is the meaning of population growth rate decline. A negative population growth rate can only be achieved if the death rate surpasses the birth rate. Losing a total of a billion people every twenty years is a scary amount of death. Do you realize this? This number is not just 1 billion people dying every 20 years, it is the number of people being born in a 20 twenty year period (because in order for population to decline at all the deaths have to first offset the births) plus 1 billion dying in just 20 years. How will this happen without some catestrophic death event? It can’t happen just from people not having as many kids. This is why overpopulation is a problem. Wake up! Your own statistics show it!

In replyThe point still holds that those in the city, given the different lifestyle, view having children differently. On a farm, for example, an extra hand is desirable. In a city, raising a child can come across as a huge expense, thus making the thought less desirable.

Can you offer some statistical support to your claims about Americans vs. Bangladeshis? (Also, perhaps it is the American diet that ought to change.)

People not having kids will indeed allow the deaths to offset the births. If children are not replacing their parents, the older generations, larger than the newer ones, cannot be replaced as they die. (Imagine an upside down pyramid. As each top layer is removed, the pyramid shrinks in size.)

losing a billion a yearThere were, as of 2008, 506 million people over the age of 65. It is not inconceivable that a few million of those will die off. With abortion numbering, annually, over a million in the US and possibly 13 million in China alone, it is possible that a billion humans can be eliminated that way. Sex-preference abortions eliminates the child bearers, so that takes care of future population. In fact, one abortion eliminates a male or female child and all its potential progeny. Thus the future is already depopulated.
The consequences of abortion: inability to subsequently get pregnant or to maintain a pregnancy; premature deaths of babies from premature births; breast cancer and suicide (particularly in China, which has the highest female suicide rate in the world) will wipe out a lot more people.
Estrogenic contraception has caused a lot of strokes, malignant hypertension, pulmonary emboli and breast cancer (it is listed by the WHO, along with asbestos and nicotine, as a Class 1 carcinogenic). The byproducts of this steroid, excreted into the world’s water supply for five decades, is implicated in the increase of human prostate cancer. Progesterone containing contraceptives, have been shown to markedly increase HPV (and its potential for cervical cancer) in third world women, on whom it was, exploitively, first tested. It also has increased the numbers of women with HIV. Progesterone, also a steroid, changes the vaginal and cervical mucosa, making the user susceptible to local infections. It lowers immunity also, increasing the potential for disease to become systemic. In its most concentrated forms (Ella and RU486) progesterone has caused women to die from the fatal infection C. Sordelli.
It has been observed, for hundreds of years, that women who never have babies are at increased risk of breast cancer. Elective and mandatory sterilizations will open a woman up to this.
It is a sociopathic sisterhood and culture, that believes in ‘Choice’ without massive public education about the consequences of the choices made and without a nod in the direction of the third world sisters who are dying as a result of the eugenic mindset of the first world.

Declining once 8 millionIn this site you claim that overpopulation is a myth. This is because, acoording to you, the population stops growing rapidly and in fact it will decline once we reach 8 million. I wonder how you get this number and why you think this.

In your site you say your numbers are in according with UN predictions, however if you follow the link it clearly says that the world population will CONTINUE to grow to at least 10 billion by 2100 (after that it doesn’t say). this is in controdiction with your claim stating the growht of people will decrease after 8 million, so please explain how you get this information and if there is any other evidence around it

Everyone is on a different page here. Population growth and total population are two completely different things. It is possible for the growth rate to slow down dramatically every year and the total population still grow. As long as the growth rate is above 0 and not negative then the population will still grow. What I got from the video was that the population is not ballooning out of control due to simple math. Why people immediately started talking about Bangladesh and water bottles is beyond me. I get their point but was not what the video was trying to show. I have not seen enough facts to show me that the population will actually decline but in the US I know it will slow down a lot because the baby boomers are getting old. So that boom of growth will be a boom in decline at some point especially since people are not having babies like they used to for what ever reason you want to believe. When my parents were my age they had three kids in high school. Only one of us has a kid now and the other two are waiting for the right time AKA enough money to have kids. I am sure if I lived on a farm and didn’t believe on contraception and didn’t have access to so much medical care like my grandparents, all 3 of us brothers would have a whole litter of kids by now. Hell, we didn’t get married until we were 30. So that in itself leads me to believe that the population will reach some sort of maximum amount. Everything in life reaches a maximum. That is how nature works. Are their too many of any species on earth? Not an opinion. I mean has in the history of the world has something taken completely over? Not that I know of. I have only heard of species dying off. Nature evens things out, always.

The Environment will be a casualty.We already encroach on every wild habitat. The population growth may be slowing. It may not. But the size of the population is growing. We have on schedule added a billion people every fifteen years, now every twelve years. War and famine are not our only concern. I do not wish for the Earth to be one big farm used up just to sustain the insanely huge human population. Every year we lose a mile of rain forest. Why? To make room for farming. Growing crops and raising cattle takes a huge amount of space. You really think that its OK to have wall to awl people, no room for any other species except those that provide us with sustenance? I am really sorry for you. Also, the predicted population drop hasn’t stopped the fact that we gain more people in a shorter period of time now then ever before. Stop lying to yourself.

has anyone considered the education of women?As women become more educated and have more opportunities available to them, they have less children. Why hasn’t anyone mentioned this? This trend will continue, even in third world countries.

Education of womenThe education of women,and the subsequent participation of women in the economy outside of the home is often overlooked in any lay discussion on ‘over population’ From a demographic point of view, the fertility rate in any population is key to the successful growth of that population. The fact is humans are trending toward voluntary extinction. The fertility rate for the world population has been trending downward for over 50 years.This is due entirely to the continued decrease in the fertility rate for the human population as a whole, which is a direct result of the changing role of women in all societies.

Education vs Ideologies… Hey I know what i am doing.This is the story of one sweet city girl, my friend by the way, very smart, an A student that graduated high school and moved on to collage, she was also very proud to have not been like other girls and gotten pregnant by some looser from school. Well for some reason when taking a trip and the full moon being out she got pregnant by a man she does not love, someone she will not marry, a man that may be impregnating other smart women which he cares little about.
Some may want to make excuses that collage students are not yet fully educated men and women, I say you graduate high school you are an adult with enough education to know better, the idea to treat collage as a glorified high school is ridiculous, is a business transaction you pay for that education. This site believes the cities are fill with ideal nuclear families, there are many people out there that think with their crotch. Stupidity does not care how many PhD you have.

Great pointTheir numbers are based off of ratios which is not how to look at this problem. Like you said, the just because the RATE of the growth declines doesn’t mean it stops. Most economic theory is based off of the same principle. a .3% sound like a MUCH better rate than the current 1.1% however if it is .3% of 30 billion than its not so good is it? The numbers in the video are relative to the total population which no one can deny is climbing! And yes…America’s and China’s rates will slow down but India and Africa are without a doubt, on the rise.

OverpopulationErwin Anders, erwin.anders@gmail.com
Overpopulation cannot be meassured just by number of people. Peru is almost three times larger than Germany, but only 3% of its land is good for agriculture. Since “jobs” are not created, people from the Andes arrive to upper jungle regions, and clear every inch of woodland they find. They also start price-speculation with land. A “state” in Peru called “San Martin”, used to have 5 million hectares of the most luxurious bio-diversity. Today remain 1.3-million Has.
It is the “Pacman effect”. Every “dot” (tree) vanishes. Left Peru in 1970 with 12-million people. Returned in January of 1998 with 25 million. Today: 32 million. Under-developed countries double its population every 30 years. Can you imagine Peru by 2110 with 100 to 120-million people, only 20% of today’s water-supply, and not ONE single tree all the way to the Atlantic? Our planet used to be covered by 14% of rainforests. Today only 6%.
And we think people (and overpopulation) have nothing to do with it? Humanity was discovering every day a new tribe in the jungles during the 1950’s and 60’s. Today: “nature has to hide from humanity”. Ask the fish in oceans and rivers. If you put all the plastic bottles in the Pacific ocean in the center, and take a picture from one of our satellites, it is the size of France. With a 10-billion population, plastic bottles will take the surface of twice or three times the size of France. Why do we like to live in small cans when each one of us could have an hectare to live comfortably? Even our brains would have some air.

Overpopulation 2Erwin Anders erwin.anders@gmail.com
Let’s say we have eliminated our jungles by 2110. Do we know how much faster global-warming is going to speed-up? If so, how much land is going to be under water? How many European countries are going to be under water. By reducing fields of agriculture, is the world going to be able to feed its people? We talk and talk about the knee and its meniscus, but we forget the body. Overpopulation is not about 8-billion people or ten-billion. It is about the outcome, the result of it.
Some scientist claim that by the year cero, the planet had between 100 and 250-MILLION people, noy BILLION. By 1950 we had about 2.3 billion people. The population watch says that the LOW estimate is 7-billion. In 1995, while I was living in the USA, some scientist said that we had already 8.5-BILLION people. Does anyone know what he is talking about? One million elite economists, and nobody could predict the crisis? Scientists in the seventies predicting that by 1990 we would have no more oil. I lived in the USA while they were pushing for gun sales. Today, they wish to take arms away from people. It is as ridiculous as having a wife, but her breasts are seven inches long one day, the next only 2 inches. The next 12 inches, the next CERO inches.
We don’t even know or understand “economy”, but everyone continues talking like an expert.
Here David Suzuki (not the most stupid man on earth) about “economy”.

< "Economists say, if you clearcut the forests and put [the money] in the bank, you could make 6 or 7 percent. If you cut down the forests and put it into Malaysia or Papua New Guinea, you could make 30 or 40 percent. So, who cares whether you keep the forest, cut it down [and] put the money somewhere else! When those forests are gone, put it in fish; when the fish are gone, put it in computers. Money doesn't stand for anything, and money now grows faster than the real world.
Economics is so fundamentally disconnected from the real world, it is destructive. If you take an introductory course in economics, the professor—in the first lecture—will show a slide of the economy, and it looks very impressive. They try and impress you, because they know d*** well that economics is not a science, but they're trying to fool us into thinking that it's a real science; it's not.
Economics is [just] a set of values, and [they] use mathematical equations and pretend that it's a science. But, if you ask the economist, 'in that equation, where do you put the ozone layer? Where do you put the deep, underground aquifers? Where do you put top soil or biodiversity?', their answer is 'oh, those are externalities.' Well, then you might as well be on Mars! That economy's not based [on] anything like the real world. It's life, the web of life, that filters water, it's microorganisms in the soil that create the soil we can grow our food in…insects fertilize all of the flowering plants…nature performs all kinds of services…these services are vital to the health of the planet. Economists call these externalities; that's NUTS.">

Fertility rate low??I believe it is due to vaccinations. Government and other sources have told us that we constantly need the flu vaccine every year or more other vaccines so that we would live healthier lives. However, many studies [don’t have sources available] have shown that these vaccines can be detrimental to one’s health. For example, I read an article that the H1N1 vaccine was not necessary to take, and in fact, the developers themselves wouldn’t take them because of the traces of mercury in them. [also do not have the sources available]. I believe this and other medical reasons are to blame. This is entirely my opinion though.

Don’t take my word for it; I encourage everyone to conduct their own investigation.

JunglesThere’s so much error in this comment it’s not worth hitting all the topics, but let’s stick with jungle. Because so much low-level subsistence farming is being abandoned, jungle is actually growing back at 50X the rate at which jungle is being cut down. The world’s jungles are surging. Oops!

Just as a side note, structures have been discovered in the Amazon which reveal most of it was cleared for farming by pre-Columbus societies, which collapsed when South America was invaded by the Spanish and Portuguese, master killers. So the jungle is relatively recent there.

First let me say that “most” of the Amazon was not cut down or used for farming. It is very easily to tell the difference between original rain-forest, and second growth. This is simply not the case. If you can find me a peer reviewed scientific paper, or even a credible news article saying this, I’ll send you $100 and an apology.

Degraded rain forests are not equal to pristine native rain-forest environments. They lack the bio diversity, canopy coverage, and complexity that is necessary to support some species. In any biome you will find hardy and resilient species of plant and animal life, however, you will also find many fragile varieties. These fragile varieties are some of the species that are contributing to current extinction rates that are 1000, to 10,000 times higher than “normal”. (http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/biodiversity/biodiversity/)

What you are saying is similar to the analogy of killing 150 Chinese people, but not shedding a tear because for every one killed 50 East Indian children are born. They are both human beings, but their cultures, arts, feelings, beliefs, and many other things are completely different. You cannot simply just replace them with another culture. Its a bit of a morbid example but such are the same for rain-forests. On the surface they appear to be similar, but the intricate details, knowledge, medicines, arts, and history’s are lost forever.

This Earth is a living, breathing thing. If we continue to treat it badly, as we do, it will collapse. This is not a conspiracy, or a scare tactic from nerds all over the world; its simply just the truth. Currently marine ecosystems all over the world are showing signs of imminent collapse, and unfortunately for us, where marine ecosystems fail, so do their terrestrial counterparts.(http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/blue_planet/problems/problems_fishing/)

Forest regeneration Can you give a few examples where forests are growing at 50x time than the rate at which they are being cut down?
And can we really compare the pre-Columbus era with this present day? Isn’t the population a little more today than then? And yes, forests will regenerate if not disturbed and so what if the forests are recent? Just a side note,50% of what the forest survey of India claims to be a forest is actually orchards and other kind of plantations. Here in India at least huge tracts of forest are lost to industrialisation, irrigation projects and the such. If you compare the scale of these and what’s been lost to agriculture it’s stagerring!

it only goes along the wholeit only goes along the whole population thing. even if we do go up more than we can handle, eventually the consequences will force us into smaller numbers. i would still want to control the population numbers because it does make it harder to live due to human/ corporate greed. also it would prevent the suffering invoved in going back down by force. he just said that each time we grow we take more to double but we have been able to make that graph an exponential one, which he said isnt what it looks liek. IMO it is somewhat exponentialbut nonetheless, it’s not like that will be fixed anytime soon. so while i wouldnt go ahead and say “the end is nigh!” i would tell people to start considering control.

Logic math error with presentationThere is a logic error that occurs when growth rate/timeframe is ignored and focus is only upon the number 1 Billion.
!804 population hit 1 Billion and by 1927 population hit 2 Billion, a 100% increase. Agreed, but then things meander away from logic and math modeling of exponential growth as it is stated that the 3 Billion number was hit in 1960, but that was only a 50% increase of the 2 Billion hit in 1927, which is true but then speciously presented as showing a decline in growth rates.

From 1B to 2B was over a period of 123 years, the next Billion was added over a mere 33 years, but time and actual year over year growth is ignored and instead we are given focus to the true, but irrelevant fact that each time you add 1 Billion to your new total the 1 Billion is a smaller growth.

For quick understanding of this flaw consider that…
from 1804 to 1927 (123 years) the population doubled (from 1B to 2B).
from 1927 to 1975 (48 years) the population doubled (from 2B to 4B)… That is not a slowing of the growth rate, quite the opposite.

From 1804 to 1927 the population grew exponentially by 0.565% (Each year there were 0.565% more people than the previous year). Continuing at that growth rate; by 1960 there would have only been 2.408 Billion; 1975 would have recorded 2.621 Billion; currently we’d have 3.265 Billion; in 2050 (123 years from 1927, which was 123 years from 1804) we’d finally hit 4 Billion.

Instead we find that from 1927 to 1960 the growth rate increased to 1.236% year over year; 1960 to 2014 the growth rate has increased again to 1.65% resulting in total population by year’s end to be 7.26 Billion.

If we had maintained the exponential growth rate of 0.565% we would only have 3.265 Billion by year’s end. If we had stuck with the 1927 to 1960 growth rate of 1.236% then 2014 would end with a population of 5.823 Billion,
However, we are maintaining the 1.65% growth rate, which, if unabated, will put global population in the year 2050 at 13.085 Billion.

You guys need a logic tester and fact checker?… ( I am thinking “YES you do!”)… I am available for hire.

Been around forever“In other words, we can’t blame population for problems that have been around forever.”
Fair enough. I agree.

But you can blame it for problems that have NOT been around forever, like our skyrocketing CO2 concentration, mass deforestation and desertification, habitat loss due to human sprawl, pollutants like small plastic particles spread throughout the oceans, and lots of other problems that have brought countless species to extinction and threaten the existence of our own.

You could blame those problems instead on our industrial/economic practices and our attitude toward the environment, and you wouldn’t be wrong, but does not our ever-increasing population create ever-increasing demands on production in order to sustain it? And do you really have hope that our current system is going to change dramatically?

OverpopulationIt is sad to see how human beings are still trying to make things look better than they are. This world is too small for 7 billion, way too small. A population of moderately living 500 million to 1 billion is sustainable IF we turn from non renewal le resources. However, in just 300 hundred years we hav quadrupled our population and still keep growing and each of us is using more than this planet can give…with plenty of more billions of people waiting to increase their loving standard. How can you not see this? Alone the idea of trying to find excused for a high population is insane at best. The way we live, the way this so called civilization has developed over a few hundred years is a clear dead end – unfortunately, there are almost 7 billion people like you too blind to see it, to afraid to acknowledge it and to dumb to fix it…

Realistic modeling, and logic error exposed.There is a logic error that occurs when growth rate and time frame is ignored and focus is only upon the number 1 Billion.

In 1804 population hit 1 Billion and by 1927 population hit 2 Billion, a 100% increase. Agreed, but then things meander away from logic and math modeling of exponential growth as it is stated that the 3 Billion number was hit in 1960, but that was only a 50% increase of the 2 Billion hit in 1927, which is true, but speciously presented as showing a decline in growth rates, which it was not.

From 1B to 2B was over a period of 123 years, the next Billion was added over a mere 33 years, but time and actual year over year growth is ignored and instead we are given focus to the true, but irrelevant fact that each time you add 1 Billion to your new total the 1 Billion added is a smaller percentage of the total.

For quick understanding of this flaw consider that…
from 1804 to 1927 (123 years) the population doubled (from 1B to 2B).
from 1927 to 1975 (48 years) the population doubled (from 2B to 4B)… That is not a slowing of the growth rate, quite the opposite. The seconded doubling occurring in only 39% of the amount of years it took for the first doubling…quite an increase.

From 1804 to 1927 the population grew exponentially by 0.565% (Each year there were 0.565% more people than the previous year). Continuing at that growth rate; by 1960 there would have only been 2.408 Billion; 1975 would have recorded 2.621 Billion; currently we’d have 3.265 Billion; in 2050 (123 years from 1927, which was 123 years from 1804) we’d finally hit 4 Billion.

Instead we find that from 1927 to 1960 the growth rate increased to 1.236% year over year; 1960 to 2014 the growth rate has increased again to 1.65% resulting in total population by year’s end to be 7.26 Billion.

If we had maintained the exponential growth rate of 0.565% we would only have 3.265 Billion by this year’s end.
If we had stuck with the 1927 to 1960 growth rate of 1.236% then 2014 would end with a population of 5.823 Billion.
However, since 1960 we have been maintaining the 1.65% growth rate. This growth rate model juxtaposed against the ‘Billion Added’ milestones shows the following:
1988 population 5 Billion (real) vs 4.879 (model)
2000 population 6 Billion (real) vs 5.861 (model)
2012 population 7 Billion (real) vs 7.041 (model)
By the end of this year population will be at 7.26 Billion and the exponential growth rate modeling of 1.65% also shows 7.26 Billion.

Yes, it could be rightfully nit-picked that the GR from 1960 to 1975 was 1.935% and from 1975 to present it has been 1.54%, and thus conclude that there has been a decrease in growth rates. 1960 to 1975 was a post-world war population explosion time, however, making that span anomalous, and yet it is smoothed by the over-all 1.65% GR.

Further scrutiny shows the GR from the year 2000 to 2012 to be 1.38%, which supports the notion that there may have been a peak in the growth of growth rates and that we are in a period of declining growth in growth rates. It is not an immutable fact that this is a trend that will continue simply because it fits a bell curve and one’s ideology. It may also be anomalous and smooth out over time, however, it is valid to consider it a trend that may continue for some time and make models.

If we model it as a trend and we start at year 2000 with 6 Billion population and a GR of 1.4% which is reduced by .01% each year (The GR equals the GR of the previous year multiplied by 0.9999, i.e. 2001 = 1.3899%, 2002 = 1.3797%, etc.). we then see the following milestones:
2012 population 7.043 Billion
2014 population 7.223 Billion
2023 population 8.054 Billion
2033 population 9.005 Billion
2044 population 10.063 Billion
The 13 Billion mark doesn’t get taken out until 2077 and we don’t see the growth trend reverse into decline until the year 2144 after population peaks in 2143 at 15.871 Billion

Another model I made, which might be closest to the mark (and the ‘population growth is a lie’ crowd will appreciate), is from 1927 until 1987 a 0.01% yearly increase in the growth rate (starting at 1.236% and peaking in 1988 at 1.8554%) followed by a 0.04% yearly decrease in the growth rate. The milestones of the past and current are in sync with this model.
Population hits its peak in 2034 at 7.823 Billion at which point it slides in decline. 2044 population is down to 7.682 Billion; in 2077 it’s only 5.446 Billion; by 2100 only 3.312 Billion.
One hundred years from now only 2.2 Billion people walk the earth. By the year 2136 the population slides below 1 Billion for the first time since 1804.

Of course that trend of decline isn’t likely to persist, but if it did the year 2247 would be the year that less than 1 million people roam the big blue ball…and only 1,000 people would usher in the new year in 2316.

please stop modelling linear growthPlease stop modeling linear growth. Read a bit on population modelling from a physical stand point, e.g. logistic growth. There are penalties and rewards that depend on the current state.

Take Iran, for example. The birth rate was >6 as recently as 1986. It is now below the replacement rate (2.1). This decrease is due to theocratic policies as well as modernization (children cost money in modern economies). It’s gotten bad enough that Iran is actually trying to promote childbirth.

Government incentives to have children won’t bring the fertility rate back to 6, but it might get it back to the replacement rate. We won’t be seeing the pendulum swing back.

There are many nations where the birth rate is still high, but those nations will follow suit as they modernize. There is a definite pattern here. Modernization leads to people having fewer children. You can play with your projection models all you want, but if you ignore the “why”, your models have no value.

Children are People, not “costly impediments”Demographic expert Philip Longman observes, in his book The Empty Cradle, “As more and more of the human race find itself living under urban conditions in which children no longer provide any economic benefit to their parents, but are rather costly impediments to material success, people who are well adapted to this new environment will tend not to reproduce themselves. And many others who are not so successful will imitate them.”

Wow, you say that like it’s a good thing, that people should view their own children–the future of our race–as “costly impediments to material success.” That actually makes me feel physically ill. I suppose, though, that in a culture that elevates greed to the highest value, there’s no other reason to have children, if they “no longer provide any economic benefit to their parents.” Gag.

Oh LookIts 2014… We havent suffered a DRASTIC drop in population growth like many were expecting a few years ago… and its not going to happen. Human innovation will not let our population growth halt. We will populate the entire land of the earth, then the seas, then the skies, then space… Population growth will never stop until we suffer a solar apocalypse… this is both a curse and a blessing. The more people we have, the faster this innovation will progress.

End of story.

It doesn’t matter if overpopulation is a myth or if it truly is a problem. We will deal with it like we’ve dealt with all of the other problems.

Well, actually no we won’t.It is physically impossible for the population to just keep growing forever. There’s only so many nutrients in the world, they don’t just appear. They are recycled through the ecosystem. That means that there is only so much food that will ever be on earth at any given time. I don’t care how technologically advanced we become, there is no way that the population will keep exceeding because there is no way that we can produce enough nutrients to feed everyone. There won’t be any invention that allows us to, because it’s completely impossible. While we can slow it down, we can’t stop it. The human race hasn’t had to deal with this type of problem before, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just how the world works. But it’s not something we will just “figure out” because we already have. We have figured out that we are going to have higher competition for things we take for granted today because people are going to start starving. So don’t be surprised when your groceries and water bills start skyrocketing in the next 40 years.

alot of are population isalot of are population is older people and eventually there going to have to die. once those older people die that will be a huge population decrease,one big problem is people not knowing how to use birth control and having so many kids which is crazy. science isnt always right. its up to everyone to fix it not just some people. it is what it is.

birth rates slowingbirth rates have been slowing because of things like birth control and abortion. also because of the costs of paying for a child may be to high for parents to pay, so they then dont have kids

Why More Over Less?The entire argument of this website rings hollow if a convincing argument can not be made for more people over less people. We know the hardships and sacrifice that needs to be made for every additional person. There is more refuse, more carbon, more human waste, more social strain, more low level jobs required, more food and therefore phosphorous consumption, and more resource consumption in all other categories. What intrinsic value does 4 billion have over 3 billion, 5 over 4, 6 over 5, or 7 over 6? What’s the point exactly, besides pushing ourselves up against a resource and pollution wall that will require increasing levels of pain to back away from for every significant increase?

Like rats, humans are intrinsically psychologically healthier as population density decreases. Why increase population density? What’s the point? To make matters worse, the countries with the highest birth rates have the most difficult time feeding themselves and sourcing clean water, and the citizens then when possible proceed to crowd the borders of the countries with already high population densities and lower birthrates ie: Europe. Are you telling us that China, India, Africa, and Europe could all use more people?

First, your extrapolation of potentially slowing population growth, to one that is negative, to negative growth that continues until the population is in the low millions has zero objective basis. To make an accurate prediction, you’d have to look at the independent variables that are causing population to slow and create a model, using those variables as well as other variables, like increased income, that would come into play as population declined to specific levels and then make our prediction for the rate of growth or decline at each new level. Saying that the population growth is slowing and so it will eventually go negative is, first, a scientific error, and then the error continues with a drastic repetition of the same error at each new level until you magically reach the low millions. Why not just take it to 100 people? That makes just as much sense by your logic.

Even if the population were to hypothetically dip to the low millions, it doesn’t matter. One billion people is not intrinsically better than 3 million, the people who do not exist will never know nor care that they do not exist, and vast stressors will be removed from the earth’s resources and ecosystem.

Could you make an argument for subsidizing the existence of 7 billion black gorillas or 7 billion hyenas? If so, do so, and if not, why not? One argument for “why not” is that 7 billion gorillas or 7 billion hyenas would have trouble feeding themselves without constant assistance from other continents and would cause havoc on the world’s resources and ecosystem. Similarly, much the the worlds extraneous population cannot feed themselves and wreak havoc on the world’s resources and ecosystem. If people, then why not gorillas? What is the intrinsic value of 7 billion gorillas over 300 million or less? What is the intrinsic value of 7 billion people over 300 million or less?

wow!so ur saying depopulation is better than a focus on a more ecological and sustainable approach to how we treat our world.. because of pollution? Perhaps if the government would do there part in maintaining an honest ecological approach,pollution wouldnt be a problem.. but when the costs of organic is so hi and the cost of anything inorganic and corrupt in our world so low, whilst organic feeds our world and its infact GMO itself causing the most havoc and pollution to the world as it kills it the fastest.. you are being screwed into having the idea depopulation is the answer. Perhaps the answer may be.. stop dumbing down America (google Charlotte Isyrbit), stop trying to have control over food and health (playing God / monsanto) …and then, if you are the government start trying to do good sustainable ecological things to better our world instead of making them illegal or impossible. you would have better people had u given them better leaders.. do we need depopulation or better role models in our government . if they hadnt pumped our streets with oxy’s those overpopulated “sickies” may be respectable healthy people right now. dont blame the people for getting dummer and sicker.. spread them out properly and each of thise people could be benificial instead. all this extra space but we build up overcrowded cities… th only reason you would feel like we need to depopulate is if you live in a downtown and dont get to see how much space is actually left for people. i habe seen cities get smaller.. About 3 in Ontario. Each city used to be booming as now they are struggling.. depopulation was never the answer. 10 years ago we had a better economy.. same amount of people.. most people will say that is the result of 911.. when life became something different, and the people started to struggle.. from decisions made buy our government we as people now struggle.. tell me how this is because we need depopulation? our problem is our leadership.. not who has and has not the right to live.

Inorganic is cheap and unhealthy yes, but also convenientMonsanto is horrible for the earth but think about how many people there are in the world now, it would be a lot harder to feed everyone if they weren’t genetically modifying chickens and all the messed up things they do to speed up and increase our amount of food. That’s another reason we need the population to go down. Yeah we need better role models but we also need less people. Even if those “overpopulated sickies” were healthy, respectable people right now there would still be too many people for the amount of resources we have left. Space isn’t really the issues it’s the level of consumption such a large population has on our resources that’s the problem.

Brilliant refutation of theBrilliant refutation of the nonsense spread by this website. My question is, what is the motive for the setting up of this pro-population growth site and who sponsors it? I can think of only two self interest groups, namely the religious and ‘capitalists’. The former I doubt, as religion is seldom mentioned. Capitalism on the other hand…. Where would the world’s elite be without an ever increasing consumer base? Stock markets would crash! The ponsy schemes that are retirement funds would collapse! Oops I’ve just seen the flaw in my argument. We are all to blame for perpetuating the lies espoused on this website. We are all addicted to pretending that overpopulation is not a problem… Don’t fret though, gaia will solve the ‘problem’ all by herself.

what?First, the website seems to be simply stating that the problems that exist are not due to overpopulation. There is no argument for more people, so calm your jets. Moreover, these models, if I assume they are using the more physically inspired models are not extrapolations from current trends. Rather they propose that high populations in cure costs, while low populations have opportunities to grow without problems like competition and disease to weigh them down. This theory is the root of chaos theory, and does an amazing job in predicting complex patterns on the populations of many species. Despite our advanced nature, should we really be surprised that these models do a fairly decent job of predicting our collective nature as well?

You seem to suggest we need to have unbridled number of children.
What number of children per person is enough? 20? 30 ? 10?
Common sense needs to prevail. Have a couple of kids & that is enough. Perhaps people need to be educated here.
I think one should look at their resources – if you can’t afford to have 10 kids – why would you – just for the sake of breeding?
That is irresponsible behaviour. Who should look after all your children that you can’t afford?
Sounds like we need to educate people on the laws of supply & demand.

so its right for humans toso its right for humans to destroy the planet and take away possible future life e.g. 5 million years from now? What have we achieved that is so great? Until that day wake up the world is not just for human beings. The rate we are going there wont be human beings.

To “Why More Over Less” I can understand you’re upset and philosophical thought process; however, I read a grand deal of questions yet I don’t see you making any effort to answer them…. It’s cool that you found what you consider flaws in people the work of people actually doing something in terms of the overpopulation topic, people that actually do there research. What’s not cool is the nothing you are doing to solve them. Ask you’re questions and play devils advocate but don’t go about “throwing shade” when you have no drive to even research for yourself.

But you’re missing the point! Totally!The point here is not that we should encourage population growth. No-one is advocating having 25 billion people on the earth or even 50. The point is simply that as population density rises worldwide, the increase slows down. Is that so hard to understand? Your view is simplistic and the gorilla and hyena argument makes no sense.

The nature or humanity is such that things don’t change in 1 generation, but in 100 they do. So what if poor people are “breeding” too fast in your opinion. In coming generations only some of them would have survived and the “clever” genes survived. Interfering with this is courting the biggest disaster imaginable.

I would say the people whoI would say the people who are alive are glad they are even if they live in “undesirable” countries as you suggest. Im not seeing suicides in the billions. If we’re just rats then why is there migration to more densely populated areas. Rent ain’t cheap in Manhattan. Even the people who live in the slums of third world cities moved there from the country. Crime is just as high in the country. Extrapolation is necessary in all forensic sciences. In addition, large populations provide the ability to specialize which allows you to even take part in this instead of hoeing beets in the heat wishing you had ac and Chinese take out for dinner.

RE: Why More Over Less?Why more over less? More humans = more innovators, creative minds, etc. If the population of homo sapiens was reduced to the low millions, technological innovation would slow dramatically, if not cease altogether. If the population of humans was reduced to 100, we would likely soon be extinct. Absolute numbers do matter.

I value our species more than I value gorillas and hyenas. A gorilla will never send someone to the moon, figure out how to divert a comet on a trajectory to impact Earth, compose a symphony, or anything else that is unique to humanity. You make a strong argument against the increasing the population of gorillas to 7 billion. That argument does not directly translate to humans.

I would like to see the population of humans pass 100 billion, just not on this planet, spread throughout our solar system.

what?Rivers are running dry because they are being diverted for agricultural land, rainforest cut down for building materials, Huge areas of land cleared for housing, excavation. All to provide for the increasing population. You are delusional.

“The world balances everything out”The world does not balance everything out. I’m not entirely sure where you got this idea from, but if it was so good at balancing everything out, then maybe it wouldn’t be boiling itself alive.
Thank you for your time. ily xoxoxoxoxo

I dont think sobut, then, striktly speaking mathematics, the more the number of people on Earth, the faster the population will go up to the next billion; If it took 15 years for the population to rise from 4 to 5 billion for example,then the next period for the rise up from 6 to 7 billion must be a bit shorter, and each next billion will take a little less years, so why do you make this kind of very obvious logic error?

Oh, so you’re suggesting weOh, so you’re suggesting we should just ignore overpopulation. Malthus’ theory of overpopulation, anyone? We’ve seen it in many animal populations, so there’s no denying its likely to happen to us. Should we just wait until we deplete our resources, and then watch as a majority of the population dies? You could be one of the people affected by famine, war and disease as well. Don’t act so smug because you have a computer and a nice home. Overpopulation affects EVERYONE.

Why birth rates are dropping and overpopulationIf you think the world is over populated, then let me ask you this, how much of the food created by the big agricultural businesses is actually being redistributed to the masses? If you think about all the food that is wasted by the us military, restaurant and hotel businesses and then think about all the countries forced into the capitalistic mind set and the fact that there is vast amounts of land but most people don’t even think about that aspect, then where do you come up with this idea that the planet is overpopulated? Most of the land masses are not being used and there is plenty of farm land, as well as plenty of space. Overpopulation is just another word used by the upper crust to gentrify and cause fear in the masses because their low class mind set of thinking that they are the chosen ones, when in reality, all spiritual texts talk about these cowards what they really are: the lowest of the low, the coward, aka the devil. War and politics all a cover for their inability to show themselves among the people, the coward.

Food Great arguments, think about the food you waste today in the world 800,000,000 people went without food. Those 800,000,000 would really feel better if they ate. Oh, I forgot this is just a scamm by rich people.

ITS VERY MUCH TRUE OVERPOPULATION IS A MYTHMany Countries are aware of the aging population crises, but they are ashamed to correct themself of the lie the have been propagating all these years that there is overpopulation. Why China decided to relax one child policy? in my city regular bulletin, the number of of deaths is more than births every month. in regards to food production and fresh water, as the technology speeds , food production has improved many folds. Many years back food consumption was less but now check the supermarkets, the food consumption has increased a lot causing health problems. and to add salt to it, i see every 5 star hotel, at teh end of each day wasting truck load of food in the dumpyard. there is a strong unioun among the vegetable and fruit vendors in our locality, if they sell anything beyond the marked price they are threathened so if they sell 100pounds of items, they waste 200 pounds of items without giving away for lesser price, so the poor suffers. the greed of the rich causes more concern than anything in this world.

Selfishness and Laziness prevailing to accept the truthGeneration from 1980’s onwards have become very selfish and Lazy. They really dont like to share and thats what they are taught by their parents because they were just the only child or two may be who hardly got a chance to share with other siblings. since they were one or two their parents didnt have to strive more, which means more increase in health issues like diabeties, heart problems etc. and the laziness has gone to such an extent that they treat pregnancy as a sickness and find the medication and take necessary steps to get rid of it. And worse they give the excuse that there is overpopulation! they want to enjoy life but they wont see what the future holds for them. Aged parents are already feeling the pinch but they are helpless now, with no kids around when they are in need. what they sow so shall they reap. simple mathematics check the area of the total mass of land on earth and divide by the no of people! its only overcrowding in cities no population explosion!

Too much population?Go to the villages and see they are abandoned ! People migrate to cities to increase their financial situations, to get close acess to hospitals, schools,etc. where they used to have 7-16 kids they have only 0-3 kids. thats not even replacing the generation. not all get married, not all kids survive, not all couples have kids, what foolishness… ! when God can give children dont you think he can provide for them? Oh I forgot when the God element itself is missing in the life of people nowadays, how can they find a link to anything else! i feel pity for them, they lost the way to find wisdom. Once they believe in lies theres no help! i was wondering how if their parents had to think about not giving birth to those people who argue so much about population explosion! atleast the world wouldve happily lived then to live in worries about their future end or no food in the future! man live and let the world live! there is enough space and resourses. if u dont believe me, go around and see yourself!

Lost the way to find wisdom?Lost the way to find wisdom? Speak for only yourself. I’m just fine and found the link to everything else and then some. Put god in one hand and mud in the other and see which hand fills up the fastest. God does not give children and if god gives wisdom he would expect us use it enough to not have kids if we can’t afford to feed them, not have them and then expect some miracle to happen to be able to. THAT however is not wisdom. That is common sense.

What makes humans more important than animals When people hunt predators it called “population control” when there is only a few number of wolves a lot of coyotes (below the human population) and a lot of foxes (still below human population) there is a lot of wild dogs (still below human population) even all mostly hunted and hated predators combined is not passed the human population…so why are people trying to “manage” them?

People need to read the history on this subject, it goes all the way back to the Ancient Greeks. The fact remains that if you go by History and ALL the studies and projections that have been done, we don’t have a CLUE what the limitations are on Human Population. We consistently SLAM through the mythical resource wall that will KILL us ALL.

History tells us that are studies today on this subject are just as wrong as the studies from yesterday. Some how hubris seeps in to make people believe our studies today are better. They are not. Countries have problems with resources, the World does not. That is a political problem, not resource problem.

The effects of billions of peopleYou are right, a billion is a huge number. By increasing in population by such a large amount, it doesn’t matter that we aren’t doubling in number, or exponentially increasing. With increasing population, there is an increasing demand for just about everything. This fuels global problems such as global warming. War and famines will be bigger, but they won’t do much in stopping some of these problems that overpopulation is affecting by making them happen faster. My point is that in 75 years, though it is likely we will be back at 7 billion, the damage effectively caused by global warming is significant is certainly not something we should be relaxed about.

population and caterers in goai completely agree greater numbers bring their own challenges and issues.the food becomes very expensive and poor people cannot afford it , the caterers in goa, along with the government are working hard to find a solution to control prices. but the booming population in india puts water on all those efforts.

Look back at population growth…What? Population growth has slowed dramatically in the past fifty years?
In the past fifty years or so, earth’s human population has grown more than all of human history to that point combined… Population doubled. Over 3.5 BILLION more people than just about fifty years ago… Yes, famine, plague, war, and scarcity aren’t created by the presence of more people, and yes these were around throughout all of humankind’s existence. But one cannot seriously claim there has been a slowdown of birth when population doubled in fifty years, a feat that took millennia beforehand…

What about nature?Okay, well that actually is very interesting and relieving, but the population does affect nature which effects us humans. With more people to provide for, there are more trees cut down, more cars to be driven, more litter to be thrown. All of this hurts nature, thus hurting us. I want fresh clean air and I feel like if we have to many people it’ll be much to crowded for that. So, I want to know, how can we prevent this? How do we prevent the population from hurting nature?

“World’s most pressing issues”How are you defining “the world” here? War, disease, famine, and poverty are most definitely humanity’s most pressing issues, but humanity isn’t the entire world. The world is the world. It isn’t about how many of us humans are being affected by overpopulation, my friend, it is about how much of the world is being affected. How many of us humans can this limited environment hold without other species, which we depend on for survival, overflowing into the uncharted reservoir of extinction? I agree with your title, though: everyone needs to relax. In other words, everyone needs to stop wanting and consuming. Everyone needs to open their eyes and see past our species into the world we are dependent on. A world that we much a part of. A world we are consuming. We need to relax. We need to pull away from our grasp on this world. You’re article about the declining of population is at least hopeful.
Thank you.

Can be a huge problem.Of course over population is a problem at the moment. In 50-60 years it may not be. But by then it could be too late, the earth could be drained of resources. The reason it is a problem is because we do not have the resources/technology to guarantee decent life for every person and the planet. In the last 200 years we have destroyed the world more than all the time before that. Humans are a plague until we learn to live and develop our technology to be eco friendly. The point I’m trying to make is what if we’ve caused too much extinction/destruction before any of this is achieved? Love the planet and it will give everyone a place one day.

Overpopulation, animals, plants and our earthAll of us humans are contributing to the destruction of our environment whether we like it or not. But that doesn’t mean we have to kill off all the animals, forests, ecosystems, etc. so please don’t have kids for the sake of our world.

BeleskyThe growth is slowing down because f*** heads like Isis are killing everyone off!! That’s why this world will never survive forever.. weather you’re religious or not! (I’m very open minded to everything btw) YOU can choose not to believe this. But think about it. GOOOD AAAND HAAAARD..This world will be destroyed from all countries getting in debt, countries at war, illigal imagrants and migrants are all fleeing to try make it in other countries which over populates that country, the economies are growing cutting down all our wild life to fit more people to live and more business’ for more job opportunities.. the Eco system will collapse and sooner or later all the countries will be at war over something. I can go on and on but Its 4am and I have work in 2 hrs.. Goodnight people. P.S: If you really wanna make a change.. you gotta start with yourself and then spread the love. Peace <3

2010: 7 billion (10 years – census was completed in 2010 but results not published until 2011)

…. Then projected would be more like:

2019: 8 billion (9 years)

2027: 9 billion (8 years)

2034: 10 billion (7 years)

….

If that is not going to be the case then it should be simply starvation that stops the trend, however, its not going to be starvation without an event like global warming (big freeze). Current advances in science leave us with massive desalination, for almost limitless drinking water, and cultured meat proteins for food. Therefore, if fertility rates are dropping that much… you can bet your a** its not natural. Expect some new virus to be found in most of the population. One that attacks the reproductive system. If the world does not see a population over 10 billion it’s because it wasn’t allowed to happen.

overpopulationAs usual Western society is reluctant to address the third world about this problem instead they go on criticising Western greed and affluent consumerism. It is a very patronising attitude which implies that only the West is capable of tackling any problems in the world. The fact is that Europe and America have indeed controlled their populations while many poor countries in Asia continue to overproduce with no controls in sight. These poor countries are always talking about the greed and immoral behaviour of the First world whenever they are criticised for the pollution and environmental footprint that their burgeoning polpulations create. They whine that ‘” You have raped the world with your economic dominance for the last 500 years and now you want to stop us having our turn at the trough ”
What a revealing statement about their so called moral high ground!
An important point that is rarely heard in these debates is that the more people there are in the world the poorer the quality of life for everyone. This applies to every country in the world regardless of population or economic state. b

Missing information.We will run out of essential resources before human population can peak and then recede. Yes, maybe those problems have existed since humans have existed, but there are other problems that overpopulation will cause if we don’t deal with it right now:

Oil, natural gas, coal and uranium — essential to our lives and economies — are depleting, but, even if we switched to renewable energy tomorrow, we would still not be out of the mess that we’re in. We’re experiencing problems with our living environment – climate, soil and water – that are more than just energy issues.

Hubbert’s model used to determine peak oil can be applied to any finite resource we extract from the Earth. The payback of our blindness to resource depletion and our failure to conserve is that depletion of many resources will likely happen all together. We will probably find ourselves dealing with a widespread hydrocarbons collapse right when we have to face a greatly reduced global capacity to grow crops and find people enough water to drink.

Peak Soil
The world is losing soil 10 to 20 times faster than it is replenishing it. In the meantime population is expected to reach 9.3 billion by 2050, according to UN projections. Northern China, sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Australia are already losing large tracts of arable land. Heaping on chemical fertilizers is a misguided solution.

A 2008 New York Times article told how soil takes tens of thousands of years to make 6 inches of topsoil useful for growing crops.

“Deficiency of plant nutrients in the soil is the most significant biophysical factor limiting crop production across very large areas in the tropics.” according to the UN’s Global Environment outlook, published 2007.

Peak Water
Much of the world’s drinking water lies in underground aquifers and in lakes, which behaves like a finite resource by being depleted, or capable of ‘peaking’. By 2025, about 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world population could be under conditions of water stress – the threshold for meeting the water requirements for agriculture, industry, domestic purposes, energy and the environment (UN Water 2007). Every 20 seconds a child dies from a water-related disease. With climate change, many parts of the world are becoming drier.
Himalayan glaciers are the principal dry-season water sources of Asia’s biggest rivers – Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween and Yellow . A recent UN report reported that, if temperatures continue to rise “there will be no snow and ice in the Himalayas in 50 years.” Thousands of glaciers in the Himalayas are the source of water for nine major Asian rivers whose basins are home to 1.3 billion people from Pakistan to Myanmar, including parts of India and China.

Peak phosphorus
The paper Peak Phosphorus, by Patrick Déry and Bart Anderson, estimates that we will “run out” of phosphorus 50 to 130 years from now. This means that phosphorus will peak first, then run out. When it peaks, the resource becomes more difficult to extract and more expensive.

Phosphorus is essential for plant life. It is removed from the soil by plants, and, in the case of agriculture, returned through fertilizers – along with nitrogen and potassium. Most of the world’s agricultural land does not have enough phosphate, so phosphate rocks are mined to produce the fertilizer.

Between 2003 and 2008, phosphate fertilizer prices rose approximately 350%, resulting in rising food prices which was one of the causes of riots in more than 40 countries. The 2008 food riots were only stopped by government promises of food subsidies — a viable strategy only as long as governments can afford the ever-increasing costs of food support.
Phosphorous is not destroyed when it’s used and so could be recovered and recycled. It can be recaptured if soil erosion measures were taken, and precise ways to apply fertilizer were found. If we fail to use the limited phosphorous that remains in a sustainable way, millions will starve.

A decline in phosphorous output has the potential to cause more death, especially in developing countries, than that of oil.
These issues just don’t apply to the poorest of the poor in the developing nations – they are like the proverbial canary in the coal mine. When post-peak oil prices cause the already weakened Western economies to slump into terminal recession/depression, we too will find ourselves living marginal lives. Then it may well be our turn.

The global population is rising exponentially while soil is becoming poorer throughout most of the world, and access to clean water more scarce. A decline in phosphorous by itself could pose a “Malthusian trap of widespread famine on a scale that we have not yet experienced.”

In addition, we are facing the very real prospect of global climate change. Parts of the world are becoming drier, and some more prone to flooding.

When you put all this together, it begins to look like a perfect storm.”

OverpopulationI can’t recall where I read the analysis, but the numbers they rolled out were this: With the present acknowledged numbers for arable land (farm land) on this planet and the current acknowledged population – there is enough arable land on planet earth to award every single human being ONE ACRE of land. One acre of land can produce enough food to feed FOUR people. This planet isn’t over populated, it’s Over Capitalized for Profit. So do the research and check it out yourselves and see what you find.
Here are the numbers: The Earth only has 57 million square miles of land (that’s 36.48 billion acres; there are 640 acres per square mile). However there are only 12 million square miles (7.68 billion acres) of arable land.

So right now we have enough arable land for every single human being on earth to farm an acre and produce enough food for 4 people. But we sure can’t do that in the system of Eternally Increasing Consumption called Capitalism.

“Overpopulation” myths destroy the dignity of humanityWhile I’m not sure I totally agree with the accuracy of your numbers, I agree with the idea that the earth being “overpopulated” is an affront to humanity. Even if it’s true that the world is too full (whatever that means) who should go? Most people insist that no one has to go, we just need to have fewer (or even no) children. The problem is children are not the largest demographic, the baby boomers (those born in the late 40’s through the 60″s) are. Not to mention that if people stop having kids altogether, the human race will eventually die out. Also even with half the population, poverty, war, disease and the like would exist. Always has and always will. Our main problem is not the number of people, it’s how we are misusing and overusing our resources.Take food for example (which is renewable by the way. You can always grow more food. Water is renewable too, as long as the water cycle keeps going. In fact, most of what humans need comes from renewable resources). Americans waste billions of pounds of food a year, yet we still have people who don’t get enough. Why? Poor public policy, high unemployment and pure greed. It’s not that there isn’t enough food to go around because there is.

Before the industrial revolution, there was relatively little carbon in the environment and people had more kids than they do now. If people truly want to be environmental, they should live in huts and use a horse and buggy for transportation. Those who believe the world is overpopulated should move into a monastery and be celibate. Otherwise, the evil, death-loving governments of the world will eventually force sterilization and birth control on the masses.